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Friday, 9 August 2013

Scientific evidence for the affect the moon cycles have on us: full moon and sleep.

Can the full moon affect our sleep?

I am always keeping my eye open fornew research regarding our relationship to moon cycles.
Whilst I know that a lot of us are plainly influenced by the cycles of the moon
and I believe that we have a lot to learn by being more in tune with these
cycles and learning to live in accordance with them. Science however struggles
to explain this and because science cannot offer a hard and fast explanation
people dismiss what they cannot prove.

This latest study reported in the July
25th online issue of Current Biology however
lends another string to the scientific bow for belief in the fact that the moon
cycles do affect our daily lives. This study looked at how the full moon had an
affect on the length and the quality of our sleep.

The study was conducted by Prof Christian Cajoochen and his
colleagues at Basel University in Switzerland and was conducted on a study of
33 volunteers in tightly controlled laboratory
conditions.

The study was conducted in 2000 and
over the next three years and did not originally set out to investigate a lunar
effect. The researchers had the idea of doing the lunar analysis years later. The team looked back over all their study data, which included
electroencephalograms of patients’ non-rapid-eye-movement sleep and hormone
secretions related to sleep, and matched it up with a lunar calendar. They were then able to factor in the nights that had a full
moon. Christian Cajochen, said: "A lot of people complain about bad sleep
during moon stages, or they claim that 'it was the moon', and there's a lot of
myth involved. We decided to go back in our old data to see whether we could
effectively quantify such an effect."

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/jul/26/moon-influence-sleep-studyWhen they went back to the original
data they found that the volunteers took longer to nod off and had poorer
quality sleep, despite being shut in a darkened room. The volunteers were
unaware of the purpose of the study and could not see the Moon from their beds
in the researchers' sleep lab. They each spent two separate nights at the lab
under close observation.

The brain pattern, eye movements and
hormone secretion of volunteers were studied while they slept. Participants
were also asked for subjective assessments of their sleep quality Findings
revealed that around the full Moon, brain activity related to deep sleep
dropped by nearly a third. Melatonin levels also dipped. The volunteers also
took five minutes longer to fall asleep and slept for 20 minutes less when
there was a full Moon. It is a phenomenon already known in other organisms as
the "circalunar rhythm", but has never before been shown in humans.
These findings correlated with the volunteers' own perception that sleep
quality was poorer during the full moon.

It seemed therefore that the full
moon had a detrimental affect on the subjects’ sleep patterns and that had no
correlation to the brightness of the moon since the subjects could not even see
the moon, however somehow their bodies were being influence by the moon’s
cycle.

Whilst this was a small sample size
the results were very comprehensive. The group have now said that they would
like to conduct a similar experiment to look at the influence on the full moon
on sleep on a larger sample size. Cajochen says"What I would like to do in the future is to increase
the number of subjects and then to follow up each person through the entire
moon cycle."

Other scientists seem keen to find
answers as to whether a human circalunar clock exists. Michael Hastings a
neuroscientist at Cambridge University studying circadian rhythms says "In
evolutionary terms, it sounds plausible to me at least. If you were a hunter
gatherer, you'd want to be out there on a full moon, not a new moon. It might
be that there's something about suppression of sleep under those circumstances
because you should be out hunting.

I think at best it's intriguing.
There's a biological plausibility, if we take the hunter gatherer scenario,
with regard to the mechanisms … It is such a striking and unexpected finding
that replication by other sleep labs is absolutely critical."

According to Jeffrey Kluger at
Science Time it does indeed seem likely that we humans do indeed have a built
in internal mechanism that responds to our universe and to cycles such as the
moon. “Rather, the answer is simply that we, like every other species on Earth,
evolved on a particular planet with a particular set of astronomical cycles—day
and night, full moons and less full—and our circadian systems adapted. It’s
hard to say where the internal clock is in, say, a flowering plant, but in
humans, it’s likely in the suprachiasmatic nuclei, a tiny region of the brain
near the optic nerve involved in the production of melatonin, certain
neurotransmitters and other time-keeping chemicals, all in a rhythm consistent
with both its terrestrial and cosmic surroundings. Physically, human beings may
be creatures of just this world, but our brains—and our behavior—appear to
belong to two.”http://science.time.com/2013/07/25/how-the-moon-messes-with-your-sleep/#ixzz2bTrRrmAm

We are so influenced and bogged
down by everything else that is going on in our lives that we have forgotten
how to listen to our internal mechanisms. We have these natural abilities
within us, to be able to respond to nature and what nature is telling us but we
have forgotten how to respond and what we should be doing with the signals We are given. This scientific evidence for the affect that our moon has on our lives and our behaviour is great as it proves something scientifically that many of us already believe is an important part of our lives. As more of these correlations are discovered we can hopefully realise how important our earth and moon are to us and how we need to listen to those signs we are given. Our ancestors perhaps needed less sleep when they were hunting on a full moon night. We however need that sleep and will not function on a restless night's sleep so we need to be prepared for that possible lack of sleep on the full moon. So be prepared, go to bed a little earlier, do some mediation, have some chamomile tea before bed.

Full moon blessings to you, make sure you go to bed a little earlier and allow yourself a little extra time to try and get the sleep you need on those full moon nights!Alison

Here is a summary of the report abstract for anyone who would like more of the scientific explanations! “Endogenous rhythms of circalunar periodicity (∼29.5 days) and their underlying molecular and genetic basis have been demonstrated in a number of marine species [1,2]. In contrast, there is a great deal of folklore but no consistent association of moon cycles with human physiology and behavior [3]. Here we show that subjective and objective measures of sleep vary according to lunar phase and thus may reflect circalunar rhythmicity in humans. To exclude confounders such as increased light at night or the potential bias in perception regarding a lunar influence on sleep, we retrospectively analyzed sleep structure, electroencephalographic activity during non-rapid-eye-movement (NREM) sleep, and secretion of the hormones melatonin and cortisol found under stringently controlled laboratory conditions in a cross-sectional setting. At no point during and after the study were volunteers or investigators aware of the a posteriori analysis relative to lunar phase. We found that around full moon, electroencephalogram (EEG) delta activity during NREM sleep, an indicator of deep sleep, decreased by 30%, time to fall asleep increased by 5 min, and EEG-assessed total sleep duration was reduced by 20 min. These changes were associated with a decrease in subjective sleep quality and diminished endogenous melatonin levels. This is the first reliable evidence that a lunar rhythm can modulate sleep structure in humans when measured under the highly controlled conditions of a circadian laboratory study protocol without time cues.”

About Me

I want this blog to be about you rather than about me but feel free to ask me anything you would like. This blog is about living a healthier happier life by being in touch with the seasons and the wheel of the year and with your inner soul. I am someone who sees the spirit within nature and follows the cycles of the seasons, the moon and the sun. I see all plants, animals, and humans as sacred and divine, believing that there’s a bit of the divine in every corner of the earth. I don't follow one particular doctrine as I believe in religious tolerance and all religions have something to give. I have more information including aspects of Paganism, Angels, Crystal Healing, Chakras, Goddess, Wheel of the Year on my website http://www.astarte-moon.co.uk. I also have a shop selling a range of items including Fair Trade clothing and handmade gemstone accessories Astarte-Moon shop Please feel free to message me or contact me on shop@astarte-moon.co.uk